How to Survive the Tour: A Roadie Wars Field Guide
Practical advice for Roadie Wars: Stage Climb, from the person who set the numbers. What the controls forgive, how the venues are paced, and where your ammo should go.
Roadie Wars: Stage Climb has 100 stages and a lot going on. Here's what I'd tell a new roadie on the first day of the tour.
The controls are on your side
A d-pad on glass has no edges to feel, so the game quietly makes up the difference:
- You can jump late. For 0.12 seconds after you walk off a girder, a jump still counts.
- You can jump early. Press jump up to 0.16 seconds before you land and it fires the moment you touch down.
- You don't have to be exact. A touch goes to the nearest button, not only the one directly under your thumb.
In practice: commit to jumps. If you hesitate at the edge of a girder because you think you've missed the window, you probably haven't.
Know what you're climbing toward
There are five kinds of venue: the dingy bar, small venues, theaters, arenas and stadiums. Each has its own look, its own backing track and its own objective waiting at the top of the rig: the jukebox, the VIP, the headliner, the master tape, the star.
The header tells you the stage, the venue and the objective you're climbing toward. The hearts on the right are your lives, and the line under your score shows what you're carrying.
Every fifth night is a boss
Boss nights come every fifth stage, from the Super Groupie early on to the Headliner. Plan around them. The stage before a boss is the wrong place to spend everything you're carrying.
Ammo is limited on purpose
There are eight weapons to scavenge backstage and none of them are bottomless. The counter at the top left shows what you're holding and how many are left. Save it for boss nights and for the things that throw bottles back.
The tour has breathers
The difficulty isn't a straight ramp. Each stage has an intensity setting that's separate from its number, so a brutal boss night can be followed by a stage that plays like a much earlier one. If a stage suddenly feels easy, that's deliberate. Use it to rebuild your stock before the curve comes back.
Watch a hazard before you trust it
Pyro jets, falling lighting rigs, rolling kegs and trap doors each behave differently. When a stage shows you one you haven't met, let it go through a full cycle before you walk under it. And since version 2.1 your roadie tops out of a ladder properly, hands planted and hoisting over the lip, so the top of a climb is no longer the awkward part.
Set the mix
The pause button opens separate sliders for music and effects. If you'd rather hear the kegs coming than the backing track, turn the music down and leave the effects up.
Then put your score up
Sign in to Game Center and there are two leaderboards, one for high score and one for furthest tour, along with ten achievements. Or don't sign in at all. The whole game plays offline, with no ads and nothing to buy.
Get Roadie Wars: Stage Climb, and see the trailer post for everything that's in it.